The Desolation of Smaug

2013 Peter Jackson

This was not the Desolation, alright, it was the almost desolation.   Without spoiling it, I’ll just tell you that the desolation is still coming, as most of us adults know anyway, because you have to have your trilogy experience built from one novel now.  That’s why the scene/s of dialogue between Bilbo and Smaug inside the mountain were so PROLONGED.  Right.  About 40 minutes from the time Bilbo steps into the gold and starts looking for the Arkenstone is about the time that the conversation finally winds down.  That is after the dragon and all Dwarves exhaust the interior space of all the tunnels under the mountain.

Bilbo should have been dead at least a dozen times over as far as I could tell.  Smaug calls him a thief no less than 8 times.  This is his favorite word, because it translates very well in the mouth of a dragon.

Smaug is truly magnificent and menacing, as he should be, but I’m personally much more terrified of things that I cannot completely see, like in Alien for instance where we never really get a look at the whole beast, but are left some to mystery.  That mystery was completely given away, especially as Smaug pauses in his movement just long enough to reveal his missing scale, to be conveniently shot I’m sure by that one remaining black arrow, in the next, hopefully last Hobbit installation.

Everything was hyper-realized and elongated in this show, like that dialogue with Smaug.  Hey, that rhymes!  So the special effects departments get paid well and eye-candy enthusiasts get their dizzying fix, and poof, we have an excuse for a movie.  Beorn was not my favorite however.  He was just not likable enough as the man person, and his makeup was bad.  Could have done a better job there.

There were cute kids in the village of Laketown, and home-styled warmth aplenty to build up to an eventual destruction, which if you’re read the books, you know is coming.  

But speaking of books, I must say this is not an overall bad enhancement, as the facts are all still there.  Why would they not be?  There’s plenty of time to include them all.  The films are bringing to memory some of them you could forget, such as the healing of Kili's leg with Kingsfoil.  The addition and enhancement of Elvish involvement in the whole Laketown/Elven King enterprise, and the view of the Elven King’s kingdom interior were all magnificent, as were even the jail cells and barrel setups.  Nice work on the part of visualizing that whole experience.  Also the addition of the romance of an Elven sweetheart with deep dimples, matching her with a Dwarf as interested suitor was a nice cinematic touch, not in the book of course, but still not bad.  The river ride was ridiculous and not survivable, as far as I could tell, but of course they did.  Anyone can survive a CG waterfall, although they were supposed to have the lids on the barrels!

The scenes with Gandalf invading Dol Gulder all by himself were well done, especially the wickedly horrifying darkness of the enemy against the light of his staff.  That was truly amazing.  What I want to know however is where Gandalf keeps coming up with new staffs in his future iterations, and also why he didn't look at bit more young in this story since it is some time before the LOTRings.

I loved some of the little touches, like the Dwarves' little picture book with a drawn photo of "my wee lad Gimli".  Funny.

In any case, my reaction to the film overall was that I hated it as an adult.  If you’re a kid, or you have never read the books, I’m sure it was a fun experience, but for me, it is the equivalent of turning great literature into a Disney ride, and an expensive one.  

Inside Llewyn Davis

2013
Coen Bros.

An Ode to the generation in between the conservative Post War and the rebellious hippies, this one is for all the losers out there that had a dream, a voice, a guitar, or just a cat, and that did not want to just “get a job”, but they ended up either doing so anyway because the dream didn’t work out, or they died.

Llewyn Davis was the real folk singer, the real thing.  He had the voice, the Guthrie sincerity, the traveled feet, the real life background of one who was truly a “beat” type, the stokes on the guitar, the ideal.  But he ran, like so many, heads-on into the industry man who didn’t “see any money in this” - Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). “I don’t see any money in this” is that pivotal moment, the beginning of the third act wherein the protagonist’s journey takes its turn towards a conclusion, makes a decision, and either goes all out in flames, or goes home.

There is a slice of life here of the folk scene as it was winding down and making way for the more esoteric, the more nuanced beat scene come to life in Dylan and then rock.  There is a scene of Llewyn coming out of the Gaslight Poetry Cafe at night, and there is a line of people waiting to get in, witness to the popularity and tiredness of the scene.  Llewyn yells at the line of people that ,"It's a sham, the show's a sham."  There are also the small dinner get-togethers at the apartment of a pair of true folk believers, the Gorfein's, wherein visit the square and old-school musicians who play harpsicords and "the old stuffs".  Llewyn attends the dinner parties because he needs a place to sleep and something to eat, but he is obviously suffering through it.

This story does not deal sentimentally with the beat generation at all, as some have attempted to do.  Rather, it leaves it almost silent, smoking, driving in a car without any seeming real destination, mumbling almost incomprehensible poetry lines and dropping a name in the car that sounds like Corso, ripping apart new music compared with the superiority of jazz, stopping at every rest stop necessary to stagger into the bathroom and then finally collapse on the floor drooling with a needle stuck in its arm and a surgical tube around it, then shoveled none too gracefully back into the car.  That’s pretty accurate if you ask me.  And there is Llewyn, stuck driving for them, but he closes his door on the tag along friend, and that’s that.  He still takes a stab at the music, he makes it to Chicago.

Actress Carey Mulligan plays a very effective slut.  At first, the sweet looks and charm make for a great foil for Llewyn, emphasizing the depth of his impoverishment by establishing that they have a long-time loser relationship, and then in the end she becomes another brick in the wall of insider trade for the folk scene.  As a representation of women in that scene's politics, however, she does a fine job delivering a great performance, since she refused to deliver anything else, according to the story. :)

There's Llewyn chasing a cat through the streets that turns out to not be of a gender he was expecting, close to the real thing, but not; an impostor.  That was such a perfect metaphor for the whole story.  Great stuff by the Coens.  The cat, Ulysses as it turns out, follows him out of the Gorfein's apartment, as does his music, and he is forced to carry it around with him to care for it.  I mean, what?  Who's he going to leave it with, the elevator guy?  But as an attachment, much like his box of stuff at his sister's house, and his box of records at the record company that are going to get thrown out if he doesn't take them, the cat is so much baggage that he must take care of, and like him, is getting shoved from one place to another in an increasingly smaller world.  At one point, Llewyn is asked where he's staying for the night, and he answers, "Well, there must be somebody [in the area] that doesn't hate me."

I would go into the level of confidence and sympathy we have for the point of view of Llewyn during the most touching scene in the story (again, just at the cusp of the third act, after the main character has made a major decision and is heading towards it), but that would be a spoiler.

The reality that the music industry is just someone’s whore is never more clear than this.  Llewyn most likely represents that other 99.8% that did not make it, that ended up broke, ended up with a box full of vanity press vinyl.  He most likely represents that percentage that got its ass kicked in an alley, and took a back seat to those whose studios catered to only the 1.8% that they happened to like.  He also, I am sure, represents the other large percentage that the music "system" used to utilize as fodder from the streets by creating an archaic workaround that was very much like the old time "company store" for coal miners.  This was more like reality than most other stories I’ve seen representing a romanticized “generational movement”.  

This one is not for the audience of the popular generational ideal.  This one was for those who actually lived it, attempted to love it, and lost out in one way or another.

This is a must-see if you’re a 60’s buff, a 50’s sympathizer, or just simply a music fan.  Others hooked on pop culture, easy solutions, or with no sense of history (romanticism) please never mind.

Silver Linings Playbook

2012

Ok, I just saw this film again.  I love this movie!!  ( my shortest post ever?)

Philomena

Philomena

2013

Ok, I don't like it.  There were touching moments, quite a few, and quite a few comedic moments.  The whole thing really "works" of course, because it's brilliantly directed and acted, and has great chemistry, etc.  So why don't I like it?

Because it's also a highly emotionally manipulative work that has the underpinnings of the homosexual agenda.  It takes a serious subject of the abuse of religious position, power, and greed, and turns it sideways into a manipulative text on homosexuality and the supposed absurdity of sexual abstinence.  It contrasts quite rightly the negative results of sexophobic nuns improperly administering punishment that has been left over from a bygone era of dark age mentality and cruelty, combined with a greedy sensibility, with that of the question of our sexual nature and the question so aptly put by the Martin Sixsmith character played by Steve Coogan, "But why would God give us such a powerful thing as sexuality only to then tell us we must suppress it?" (this is my wording).

This again plays into the hands of the "gay" agenda, as well as Philomena's absolutely blank and unabashed acceptance of her son's homosexual nature, explaining that she "knew all along" that he was homosexual, because he was "such a sensitive and caring boy", inseparable from his sister, so they took them both together.  As if sensitive and caring is the essential ingredient of "being" homosexual.

The writers, Martin Sixsmith (the real one), Steve Coogan, and Jeff Pope, have twisted the wrench here by taking a true story, then tying Catholicism, sexual reticence, and of all things George Bush and the cessation of funding for AIDS research altogether for a 1-2 punch against conservatism, but also thereby ruining, or at best completely clouding the real issue of compassion and grace that the Church is also known to have for lost girls, family, and children.

Booo.  I don't like being manipulated.


Agitatus

Nebraska

2013

Paramount/Vantage

“Universal”

Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, and Stacey Keach

Woody Grant, David his son, and Kate, Woody’s wife, slowly, and methodically shuffle through every single rotting room of an old homestead that Woody’s father built with his own hands in the middle of Nebraska, the landscape where everything is bare and plain, and stretching for miles to the next homestead or town.  This is exactly the description of the search through Woody’s soul, the different rooms of a man’s heart.  And amongst all that empty ruin, the broken glass, the completely demolished crib, the alcoholism, the slow depreciation of the body, the son finds a way to hold up a bit of life for his old man, to stand next to him in the face of his ridiculousness, his absurdity, his delusion, and delivers a punch that we’re so glad happens at the proper time.  

Bruce Dern is Woody, Will Forte (SNL fame) is one of his sons, and June Squibb is Woody’s wife.  Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad) joins as David’s brother Ross, the other son.   Stacey Keach does a fantastic job in an important smaller role of an old friend in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where Woody grew up.  I remember Bruce Dern from Silent Running (1972), mostly.  That was one of my all-time favorite sci-fi flicks when I was a teen, right along side THX-1138 (George Lucas’ first breakthrough starring Robert Duvall).

This story is about respect, honor, and commitment, even in the face of what appears to be a shattered and worthless life.  It’s about coming to terms with an individual life.

But it is equally about the real desire that we have as fathers to leave something for our children, even if it’s just a truck, and a compressor.

A fabulous job of revitalizing Black and White photography, and a completely appropriate use for this story’s setting.  I liked the fact that at the start, director Alexander Payne (The Descendants - 2011, and About Schmidt - 2002),  used the old Universal logo, also in B/W.  But what could not have been more appropriate than the non-use of color was the inclusion of relatives, and people revealing everything they were - also, eh hem..in black and white, especially the wife Kate.  She was the bullhorn of opinion, the town crier of lists of sins, outspoken and not a hint of embarrassment at her own self-defacement.  She left no rock unturned.  Kudos to the bravery of writer Bob Nelson, who previously to this has written only some TV drama and comedy.  There is a bite to this one.  

Ed Johnson of NUVO.NET does a review in the Nov27-Dec4 issue.  He states, “Nebraska almost succumbs to ugliness, but eventually finds it’s footing and pays off.”  I have to agree here somewhat.  That is what appears to happen if you’re not paying close attention.  But that so-called ugliness is simply truth telling, made possible by Kate, in fact, who plays a much larger role than you would at first imagine.  Ed Johnson also notes that he wonders, “weather Payne and Nelson’s (the screenwriter) parade of sad, angry, inane, lost and /or insufferable folks was an indictment of rural communities or humanity in general.”   I have to say neither.  (Please read “neither" with an “I” instead of an “E”).  It is a parade, yes, but a very carefully executed parade through the various vagaries of the degrees of motivations and manipulations that people are capable of, thereby bringing an even higher contrast to the almost winsomely honest performance of Will Forte’s character as his ingenuous son.  Again, more black and white.  This is an expose of the nature of people in the progress of dying.  

The family watching football had to be one of my favorite moments of the film.  Funny, and appropriately timed as a relief from what could have been a tedious subject.  A road movie, as Johnson said in his review, yes, but not a barren one.  I knew when the last shot was happening on the screen, when the titles would come.  It was a great closer, perfectly done, and very satisfying, a complete “trip”, without leaving us in some kind of existential blur or a question about what we should do now.  What to do?  Well, it made me want to pause and spend time with someone, to listen to them, to possibly alleviate their desires for life.  

Great film.

Next Up

Planning to go view:

 

Back to the 60s

After Breaking Bad was over, I had nothing to write about, and there were no shows I wanted to see, much less talk about. My teenaged daughter was all hyped about Thor: The Dark World, but I went to a meeting of the Indiana Filmmaker's Network instead while she donned the big 3D glasses.

So it's about time I got back to my novel, The Blue Prophet of Gingham, about the 1960s.  I'll be doing that while re-working The Amish Vampire. 

What I thought I would do for an interesting blog post, is show off my library of materials for this venture that I've collected over time, 2 more coming in the mail as I write, Nixonland and The Beat Hotel, and what I'm reading/re-reading right now. I'll start with the latest and work backwards. If any of you have an interest or a suggestion for more materials, let me know. 

[WARNING: Contains complete spoilers, so if you haven't seen the show......]

I took my time to write this review on the finale to Breaking Bad.  I wanted to think it through before commenting after the emotional climax, plus I needed to get that final song out of my head.  Baby blue….God help us.

So let’s recap here: Walt wraps up in every way possible.  He gets to his Volvo in the frozen waste and avoids a passing police car by praying out loud (to a God he has previously never communicated with and he has indicated that he does not believe in), he takes all of his money to the Schwartz’s house and scares them into giving all the money to his family with a kind of “deal they could not refuse”, he ghostly walks through walls to see his wife and child one last time and drops Skyler a get-out-of-jail almost for free card, reveals where the Hank and Steve grave is in that process, he mows down an entire gang of neo-Nazis, saves Jesse from his own personal purgatory thereby purging him of any previous evil that he could have perpetrated, and dies in a lab…with a smile on his face.

   

Somehow this does not measure up to the recompense that Vince Gilligan quoted in a previous interview when he said, “If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for Biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.'

All of Walt’s wishes were kept, except the part where he gets to share in any future that Flynn has with his 8 million plus endowment from the “beautiful people”.  But essentially, in a very round about way, it seems that he died a noble death, unlike Hank, the good guy in the story, who is plugged in the head by the neo-Nazi uncle before he can even finish what he’s saying.

Ok, the justice quota question aside, a matter of judgment for us all to weigh, there is a part of all of us that somehow feels nonetheless satisfied, me included.  Why?  Because even though I both mentally and spiritually gave up on Walt a long bunch of episodes ago, there was always still a part of me that wanted him to win.  Why?  Because it’s in our nature to want to see the suffering of the indignity-laded be put to rest.  We’ve all felt cheated, hurt, despised, rejected, disowned, and betrayed.  This is a very difficult emotion to handle, let alone suppress or deny/be rid of.  In Walt this emotional and psychological state is embodied to its purest form.

When Walt finally admits that “I did it for me”, that is essentially true.  But why don’t more people take off from their otherwise normal, albeit mediocre lives, being lived mostly legally and within some sense of a boundary, and Break Bad?  Well some do actually, and the news is littered with them.  But Walt was a perfect storm.  There was mediocrity, fueled by a kind of betrayal, and impending death, but ultimately no belief in anything divine or beyond the immediate circumstances of his actions.  He is a perfect picture of our own modern existentialism gone rampant.  The only moral compass that was in Walt’s life pointed at his immediate, and I do mean immediate, family members, and even that it turns out was largely only a ghostly reason to satisfy his sense of self worth.  Basically, Walt was a giant ego in a small body.  It’s frustrated genius at work.  Seen it before, but quite possibly without the same kind of consequences as this.

   

As tragedies go, this one takes the pages of Shakespeare right out of the book and translates directly into cultural North American, and as tragedies go this one also produces what is hopefully the cautionary tale of our time.  Somehow, though, I don’t think it will have the effect that one would think.  Yes there are consequences, but it seems that most of those were alleviated and not served up as a final justice done.

   

Could it be that it was simply all the indulgence then, of a highly aware Vince Gilligan, but without the guts to put it all in such stark terms of a real final disaster?  I'm sorry Vince, I really like you, and I love the show, obviously, but it seems you've pulled a bunch of punches here at the very last moment.  It is not simply that anyone would wish a disaster on anyone, yet if one is to consider equality, I’d say that the terms of the “contract” that was settled upon in the last show are not equal to the killing of 2 children, watching a girl die without helping, running over 2 other men and shooting one in the head, blowing up an old man in a wheelchair with 2 other enemies in a grand slam move, and slowly addicting and poisoning countless others with his almost pure product.  Not to mention the absolute heartbreak of his family being torn apart, their home being relegated to a poor neighborhood apartment, their reputation forever to follow them, having both of his best friends and family shot in front of him, and completely alienating and destroying young man Jesse’s life as well, putting Brock and Andrea, his girlfriend in harm’s way.  Oh, let’s see, shooting Mike, a bad guy that at least had a conscience, poisoning Lydia, and corrupting 2 other young men by affirming their lust for fat stacks of money over their “shady deal”.  The list goes on.  I don’t have room here.  EQUAL is just not a word here that can be used fairly in this story.

   

But one thing a cautionary tale such as this does for us, however, is expose the overall horror and reality of binging on the unethical lifestyle and the consequences of it all, no matter which direction those meted out.  In that sense, Breaking Bad must be called good.  Great show, and still not to be missed, if you have the stomach for it.

Wait, hold the phone....this just in....I need to quote here a brilliant observation from The Hollywood Reporter that I could not have said better myself.  Here is a good slant on the subject that I would like to have written myself: the finale to Breaking Bad -- even if it wasn’t what I’d hoped would happen -- was more than enough to thrill me and make me appreciate five seasons and six years of brilliant work."

Yes, amen.

Stephen Marks

See also Huffington Post Review: http://tinyurl.com/lnhmzsn
Time Entertainment Review: http://tinyurl.com/pz74per
The Hollywood Reporter Review: http://tinyurl.com/ltzlf4c
Washington Post Review: http://tinyurl.com/q4gn7ln

The Autograph Man

Zadie Smith
Vintage - 2003

I have a shelf dedicated to writing, packed with about 30 books or so that include The Wadsworth Handbook, the Chicago Manual of Style, Writer's Guide to 2010, Writer's Market Deluxe Edition, Writing Award Winning Articles, Rules for Writers, Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, The Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel, Yes! You Can...build a Successful Writing Career, How to Write What You Love, The ELT Grammar Book, The St. Martin's Guide to WRITING (5th and 6th editions), etc...but NOTHING can help you write anything quite like the 8th Chapter of The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith.

I'm not to the end of the book, and I'll tell you, I think she's channeling someone.  Ok, I am not a believer in that stuff, really.  I believe in a divine guidance that is from a true and living God whose origins are both Zionist and Christian in our culture at large, and I really do believe.  But Zadie Smith is either tapped directly into that source, or she has a consistent source of ACID from the 60s that did not get sold to anyone but her, stored in plastic in a freezer that she borrows from on a regular basis before her writing sessions.

There was a sense in reading the 8th chapter that, like Alex Li-Tandem, we (the readers) floated up near the ceiling, and became one with the honeycombed tiles there, and then floated above the sea of auction-house notables to the bar and consumed a rather unhealthy amount of alcohol in an effort to drown the reality that we'd just won the lottery and no one loved us any longer.

Zadie Smith is a true inspiration as a writer, and her work deserves the very best of critiques from all circles.  Well done Zadie.

Just pick up and read The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith.  And if you have not done so, first go get a copy of White Teeth.  Together they make up a diptych of both cerebral and metaphysical ardor that is likely not to be equaled.

I'm hoping to attain to this level of writing some day, before I die, possibly just so I can communicate even a portion of what Zadie Smith communicates in a single paragraph.  Thank you for your craft, and humor.     

Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 11
Ozymandias

Again, to be as redundant as I possibly can about anything, every shot counts in BB.  There is nothing unnoticed, nothing left to chance, and nothing wasted in this show.  It’s as near a perfect vision and a perfect 10 as anything I’ve ever seen in cinema.

This week’s examples?  

Detail #1: Ok, I’ll start with the near end of the show.  The chess game?  The White King is in the corner, and in a defensive move takes his allowed one-square move behind a pawn.  However, on noticing the details here carefully, I see that the King is not actually threatened by anything on the board.  So maybe there is no threat, but he’s moving, in any case.  The King can move one square without being threatened.

Well, the whole story is in this shot.  It’s obvious that the King has a plan, and is still carrying it out, despite the turn of events.  It’s often an endgame kind of thing, for the King to see what’s coming and move ahead of time.

Detail #2: The dog at the end.  That was most certainly a trained dog made by the trainer to walk across the highway behind the leaving car.  There is the skinny dog, head down, whisking through the frame, trotting as it were, all by himself, and out there, obviously ownerless, alone.  Then the credits come up.  Speaking of trainers, who exactly is doing the baby training in this show?  Fantastic responses, in the fire truck, on the changing table asking for “mama”.  Wow, is this baby intelligent? Incredible moments.  So there you go, a child, and an animal, 2 things that they say are hard to work with in show business.  Right.  Not for this crew.

Detail #3: The absolutely tortured and unrecognizable face of Jesse, red, satanic almost, taking up the entire right side of the screen as Todd appears in the background.  Torture never looked quite like this.

For me, the star of this show this week is Anna Gunn as Skyler.  Her performance, especially in the street, and then on the phone with Walt, is incredible.  Her terse tone about Holly, her set jaw, we’ve never seen her like this to my knowledge.  RJ Mitte’s work on this one is appropriately strained as well.  

The twists they just keep coming.

And one more thing, when people ask, “How come the good guys never get shot in TV shows?”, you can just tell them, “Well, you haven’t seen Breaking Bad.”

Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 9
To'hajiilee

I wanted to repair my last post, which is an emotionally hyper dismissal of my responsibility as a media critic, and so I’ve calmed down now and written the following: 

Now that I’ve gotten over the shock and emotion of episode 9 (or 605), To’hajiilee , it’s possible to do a real review.  On second viewing, when my mind is NOT turned off to what’s going on (I willingly suspend disbelief with film and TV so I can allow the show to take me where it wants to, then engage the brain later), this episode, like ALL episodes in this show’s history before it, is chock full of nuance, subtleties, design, purpose, and outright outrageous cinematic perfection.  

I’m not sure what they feed the people in that writer’s room, but they will all walk away this next year with little statues, along with the cinematographers.

Ok, for starters, there is the plot thickens.  You could not get a better plot point than Jul getting put under pressure to give up where the money was last seen.  The whole brains on the floor thing….wow.

But the scene I’m most impressed with, as usual with this show, is not one that involves guns, or squinty-eyed neo Nazis out of prison ready to do a hit, or barrels of cash in the sand, or even frantic driving by Walt.  It’s the scene where Walt visits Andrea and Brock at their home.  THIS I’m exited about.  Being a cinephile with a long history of looking at the projected/recorded image, I’ve seen a great deal of footage, but this is really good.  

Walt to Todd’s Neo-Nazi Uncle:

“ I don’t know where he is, but I know how to flush him out.”

So begins the segue into this wonderfully played scene.

Brock stares at a cereal box, Frootloops, and while eating them deciphers the kid puzzles on the back.

Mother asks a question that challenges Brock to answer well, demonstrating her commitment to her son’s relational growth, responsibility.  She comes into full focus in this shot.

The colors of the house are all yellowish, bright, full, happy, with soft white cabinets and trim, tall ceilings, comfortable, upper-middle class.  The gauzy and bright curtains have stars in them.  Andrea wears red.  She is luminous here, hair curled around her shoulders.  This is a warm and inviting home.

In comes the Devil.  Brock knows.  The interchange between them, the doubt in the boy’s face, the dismissal by Walt…this man in beige clothes, business casual, glasses, bandaged eye, and may I observe here…overly fleshy and white-looking head, does not fit in their colorful world.  He is tripping over himself, treading carefully, a bull in a china shop.

The very next shot from the kitchen perspective is set genius.  Set design, blocking, camera angle, lighting, everything, is so well done.  DETAILS.  The child’s art work on the fridge.  The brightly colored dishes on the island.  The wood floors.  But the blocking as well: Brock is in the background, but he is positioned directly between Walt and Andrea as they talk.  Walt’s threat is still looming over him.  Andrea is lower in the scene as well, and to the right, while Walt dominates the center.

Ok, all of this sounds really boring, I know (it’s not guns and brains, right), but it’s absolutely beautifully executed Breaking Bad work.  Nothing goes unnoticed, and nothing is without purpose.  There are about 50 more blocking and psychological manipulations of mise’-en-scene in this scene.  But those aside, there is Cranston and his superb acting.  He can play Satan better than the Devil can.  The Great Manipulator does his job here and is extremely believable.  Back to basics, THIS is what has made this show work from the start, the transformation of a simple, and even likable man from a Chemistry-teacher/dad….to Beelzebub.

Just stinking unbelievable how far we’ve come.

Get all the episodes.  Don’t start here.  Enjoy, if that’s the proper word.

Monday, September 09, 2013

Breaking Bad Season Last - Episode 605 "To'hajiilee"

Created by Vince Giligan

I have had a heart attack.  My daughter had to console me at my desk after the episode ended.  I actually had a small breakdown and had to recover from breathing difficulty.  This made the word "intense" seem like Easter morning.  

Ok, I just can't go into it here.  You have to just get the show, ok?  If you don't know what's going on, just start with Episode 1 and go from there.  Have fun with that.

Stephen Marks

On the NYTimes aricle, "20 Directors to Watch" - 09/05/13

Critics 

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott

You wonder if NYTimes writers and editors ever actually step outside their own writing and read it back to themselves in a very objective manner.  This type of myopia is very revealing, however, especially in the latest review of filmmakers that are "making a difference" around the world of cinema.  Here is the paragraph I'd like to concentrate on, in full:

"The good news is that, despite occasional critical claims to the contrary, the quality of contemporary cinema is as exciting as the quantity is intimidating. Filmmakers around the world are making movies that blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, personal reflection and social advocacy, conventional narrative and radical experimentation."

This reveals a trend in the writing of media criticism, and media itself.  While trying to sound smart they reveal the very nascent nature of modern filmmaking, ergo social development, in that there is an ever-closing gap of style that also is closing the gap for us in reality.  Documentary and Fiction, for example.  I recently saw the teen flick Transformers 2 wherein two robots are fighting.  One complains, Hey that Hurt!  The other states quickly, It's supposed to hurt, it's an ass-kickin'!  Ok, so Documentary and Fiction are SUPPOSED to be different, otherwise, what are they then?  Please people, if it isn't a fact, don't call it one.  Call it fiction, even historical fiction, which is still fiction based on a reality.  Like the movie Perfume, no one will take that for fact, although it is surrounded by historical fact, and is a great period piece for its authenticity.  

Question: Are we "blurring the lines" because we're bored with them?  I'd say that, and the fact that it is in our nature to move the lines, to ignore them, to flout our disaffection with them, or to outright obliterate them.  The word Truth has become this social anathema.

I love Terrence Malick's work.  My new most favorite film ever is The New World.  It's a masterpiece.  Upon reflection my heart wants to say, "You know, that's probably a lot closer to the real thing in history than anything that we have written about it so far."  John Smith was more John Smith, and Pocahontas was definitely in character, as were all the others down the list.  Fantastic.  We know this based on many historical facts at our disposal.  Mallick was a Rhodes scholar and knows his history.  But I would never, ever, call this a documentary!  It's an "art" piece.  The whole thing is a giant allegorical, poetic journey into the CHARACTERS of Smith and the Indian Princess, not to be taken as a literal treatise that would lead one to re-write textbooks.  It is a romance that Mallick also cleverly uses to showcase the social and historical realities of the period as allegory.  Perfectly done.

As for boundaries existing between personal reflection and social advocacy, does this mean that it's getting harder to tell what is simply opinion and what is a statement that is political or has an agenda?  That makes no sense.  Films are always political, because life is political, and people always have an agenda, even in the most fluffy of family films.  Let's return to Transformers again, since that's fresh on my mind.  The new state department guy that is sent out to "monitor" the Autobot program confronts the big kahuna transformer Prime guy, and he states concerning the giant Transformer, to no one in particular, yet distinctly as narration over the top of all else taking place in the scene, "If God made us, complex as we are, then who made him?"  This would definitely reveal a philosophical bias on the part of the scriptwriter.

Concerning the aesthetic differences between conventional narrative and experimental film, my comments do not apply.  Someone has always tried to break the mold of both ends of this spectrum, and with surprising results have often had breakthroughs that redefine cinema.  This is a good thing, and indeed does reflect a creativity and level of fighting against tedium that is much needed for film to survive.

How about the rest of the paragraph?

"The oldest filmmakers on our list were born in 1973, on the eve of the home-video revolution, making them members of the first true on-demand generation. They have grown up with unprecedented access to movies from across the globe and from different epochs, an abundance of influences that informs their work and can make it difficult to pigeonhole them aesthetically or regionally."

Another way to look at this might be that they're confused.  I'd say simply that it makes it difficult to understand some of their work, because now, like the blurring of the documentary and fiction, we have a blurring of understanding of who we are, therefore purposelessness is a new staple of the modern script.  In fact, the more fundamentally "unfinished" a work is, the more it is adored, it seems, because along with "truth" being a word that is like the plague, there are also other words that we are crossing off the common usage and media lists: conclusion, purpose, moral, deduction, resolution, direction, the end.  You get the idea.

NYTimes writers have much in common, it would seem, with the modern filmmaker of the 21st century's beginning, having the same myopic inability to introspectively regulate their own blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction.

NYTimes article link: http://tinyurl.com/k7kplwr

The Broken

2008
Sean Ellis

There are some things about most horror dramas that take us in and keep us interested.  It can vary from the pacing and structure to attraction to an actor/a face on the screen that holds mystery, or music.  In this case, it was definitely the music as the story started.  There was NOTHING, and I do mean that, spectacular about any of the shots, or unusual, or otherwise, that would have kept me interested at all if it were not for the excellently timed music, and the great editing that knew when to cut.

To use the word slow, or "evenly paced" would be understatements.  Nothing was given away early here in this thriller, and so therefore, along with the musical buildup, there was an intense and increasing amount of conjecture called for upon the audience.  At first I thought this might be a political thriller, because the Richard Jenkins character was in an official office with a US flag.  I thought maybe they were going to hijack his daughter's personhood, literally, so they could get inside the government.  Then when the Jenkins character seemed to be under attack, because we surreptitiously meet his doppelganger, the plot expanded, and a political plot still seemed right.  It was not until the Michelle Duncan character meets....well, ok so I'm not doing a spoiler, let's just say it's an intense Bates Hotel shower scene (and here I thought I had gotten over that a long time ago).  Well, after that, it was different, I'll put it that way.

All of that to say that this film did not disappoint when it came to the suspense.  It had me in its grip, very intense, wondering, waiting, wondering some more, trying to puzzle it out.  It was indeed intense almost right up to the very end.  Problem with this film is that the story in the end did not deliver.  Not believable.  I didn't buy it, and truly did not piece together what the official plot line says it was supposed to be (which I did not read until after viewing). And I'm smart darn it!  So there's that.

This film was fun to watch if you like suspense and mystery.  Great stuff, especially in the cinematography and editing, and add the great music.  I don't think it paid off in the end, but it was till fun.  And it was not overly fraught with unnecessary gore or violence.  Those moments that had it were appropriately placed, and well done.  There was only one question that stands out: How does someone scream repeatedly for several seconds when they have a hand shoved down their throat?

Alludes to: Eyes of Laura Mars comes to mind, along with Psycho.  Also, when it started, it felt a bit like Manchurian Candidate.

6 stars of 10

Breaking Bad Season 6 (5.5?)

Episode 1

Triumph and Frustration

About the show: Wow.  This is always the word that Breaking Bad leaves us with.  Ok, that is me saying that yes, but I know I'm not alone.  The best TV Drama to ever hit media is continuing its streak of excellence.   The latest episode, the first of the final 8, although low-key in action, has set the stage, and done it quickly by bringing the plot home to roost (I don't do spoilers, sorry).  So "the plot thickens" is always an understatement with this show, and continues to be.

EVERY single shot, and I mean every one, is a study in what you're supposed to do right in cinematography, sound, lighting, acting, scripting, and plot.  For instance, just one spot, and I will not spoil anything by saying this: late at night it's quiet, and Walt steps out of his house under the suspicion that he is being watched, or there is still a "problem" out there that is not taken care of.  He searches his car, and voila! there is a tracking device.  The camera tracks back with Walt in a vulnerable position on the screen, a slight build-up to the music, the crickets chirping, he alone there having made this discovery, standing still as the shot widens ever more.  THIS is classic cinema, vulnerability, discovery, alone, and all around the darkness, holding what he fears.  Great stuff.

About iTunes: I bought the whole final season, iTunes style, and am somewhat disappointed in iTunes' delivery.  Traditionally they send an email, which they did this time, that tells me, "latest episode is ready for download".  Turns out it was "Inside Breaking Bad, Blood Money".  Well, the "inside" edition is the cast, crew, and creators talking all about the episode.  I didn't want to watch that!! Especially 1st!  You watch that AFTER the show is over.  Where's my episode??  So I learn this 5 hours after the TV episode has aired, then it's too late, and the REAL episode never gave me a notice.  So it's Monday then, and all day I'm checking back to see if it's downloaded yet, or using the "store" menu in iTunes to "check for available downloads".  Never showed.  Finally on Monday night I get desperate and go to the actual iTunes store and go to the BB site itself, and there it is, the download button is active, and I still have to put in my password to get it to work.  So then it's another 5 hours, so bottom line....I'm watching the episode on Tuesday.  Wow, what a hassle.

Not only is this wrong, but it's also wrong of iTunes/Sony Pictures/AMC to lead everyone into believing last year that we were buying the whole season, only then to come up with another half a season, called Season 6, and make us pay AGAIN.  This is so wrong.  There is a class-action suit out there for misleading us.  Tempted to join it.

In any case, because of the intensity of the show, its huge following (5 million "likes" on Facebook), the NEED for this drama, they are getting away with it, because us "fans" are truly ravenous, and will not settle for anything less than an ending that beats Cecil B. DeMille parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments in 1956.   This story is incredible, and has set a new bar in drama production.  Those of us who actually work in the medium, and strive for excellence are going to have to work harder now to come up to this new standard.  It may be awhile yet before someone can top this series.

Even though we've been shown a small part of the very end in two of BrkngB's famous flash-forwards to start off the last season, we are now salivating at the idea of where the next and last 7 episodes will take us.  I just hope I can figure this download thing out a bit more quickly and stop writing desperate notes to iTunes support ala Jesse Pinkman titled: "Where's my download BITCH!?" :/     

The Master - 2012 - Movie - Paul Thomas Anderson

The Master 

2012

Paul Thomas Anderson Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

He is Jack Kerouac, he is the younger brother in Mice and Men.  He is at once Us in our most urgent and disconsolate moment, our worst in the drunken and disembodied moment, and our most ardently self sufficient and American free spirit.  Freddie Quell is the post war search for the self,  the sensate, lost, and irreducible man of the flesh.  And in this story, he is diametrically opposed to the Master, the genius, the hope and glory and promulgation of culture and Greco-Roman philosophical fulfillment, a pinnacle of humanity, and ultimately, a fraud.

The contrast and atomic co-dependence that these two characters represent make the essence of their stories so much more poignant for their differences.  The story could not have been written any more tightly woven and more intricately extruded than what has been represented here in film.  The Master, as a title, lives up to its name and delivers a master of cinema art.

Bring together a disenfranchised drifting hobo ex-seaman, a self-proclaimed prophetic Anthony, and mix in the veiled, yet powerful Cleopatra of a spouse whose truly domineering manipulations from the wings of the play are without equal, and you have the recipe for this drama.  From the very first shot, to the last, there is film orchestration here that fully realizes the medium, and could be a statement for the reason why the written work has bowed down to the screen.  This work in literature would be equal to, and in fact seems to draw some parallel from “All the King’s Men”  - Robert Penn Warren.  There is the influential demagoguery, the pandering public, followers, believers, and there is the antithesis of the Master’s persona in the person of Freddie, a brawler, an “animal”, as Lancaster describes him.  There is the real life hero Woody Guthrie to compare to, but in Freddie, there is no talent, nor an introspective need to develop one.  He’s just a hobo, a “scoundrel”, also aptly described by Lancaster.  The opening shot of the film tells his entire story, in fact.  At first we see the helmet, and what appears to be an alert soldier under it, looking around, but for what?  Where is he?  Entrenched in a bunker?  Is there an enemy near?  What is his condition?  He appears listless.  Then we realize….he is simply sleepy, and dozes off, nothing really, no substance at all.

A Kerouac kind of comparison comes from the drifting, the existential nature of Freddie, and hence our sympathies, our rooting for underdogs.  Our dislike for Lancaster Dodd may well be a sort of built-in cynical disdain for anyone who espouses curative fictions of mankind and wields them as powerful opiates to salivating acolytes.  Lancaster is our Pied Piper, his spouse Peggy Dodd, plays accompaniment, and Freddie is like some Tarzan, taken from the jungle of the world and taught how to play an instrument, like a drum, touted before them all as some kind of lab experiment.  We are privy to the conflict from the inside of the film maker’s vision, and witness to the psychological battle of the trio of players, and ultimately the truth of the nature of both men revealed, set apart, never the twain to meet.

The cinematography, the editing, the acting certainly, and the music (especially the music in this film) all create a perfect soup here of storytelling almost unparalleled.  There is a reason for the accolades from awards societies and “best of” lists.  

The music is its own character.  I have to get the soundtrack to this one.  There is really not a moment of the entire film that a music or sound-effects track is not playing along with the visuals.  That’s a 2-CD set I’m going to guess.  Musical “sounds” and atmospheres dominate the senses.  Sound is used as transition from one scene to another, in which case some scenes contain practical music, and others a background score that could be playing in the scene.  We’re not always allowed to know for sure.  The mix is fantastic.

One scene in particular stands out right away at the start of the film, and sets the precedent for most musical effects to come, while furthering our understanding of the characters, and carrying the plot forward to its next destination .  There is “jazz”, a small ensemble, playing considerably erratic-sounding and tense lower notes and sound effects with their instruments.   This begins as Freddie escapes from his last position, running from what appears to be the 2^nd disastrous situation in the story.   One is reminded right away of the Beats, the seeming cacophony of “free associated thoughts” and behaviors.  But this jazzy, disruptive ambiance slowly gives way to a celebratory brass band of syncopated and metered, loud party music, much in the spirit of Citizen Kane’s loud and pronounced trumpets, complete with bloated negro faces straining at the mouthpieces of those instruments.  The tracking shot behind Freddie as he walks along a pier, hunched, as a cold and dislocated wanderer would be, brings a boat of revelers in and out of focus, even as the music wafts and waves between the minor key jazz and this new music from the boat, which turns out to be a wedding cruise of Lancaster’s daughter, Elizabeth.  The  genius of the shot, and it is one long tracking shot, is that the musical score trades between these two diametrically opposed musics at the same time the camera is making those distinctions, literally changing when the focus changes.  Freddie is clear at first, in the foreground, with jazz mimicking him, and then as the boat music soars, the once fuzzy atmospheric lights come sharply into focus, and then back again, like a dance, and the jazz slowly gives way as he leaps aboard stealthily on his life-changing voyage, the brass 4/4 time music then completely overwhelming.  The shot carries us from lonely wanderer in the night, to stowaway, from ether, to concrete.  So very well done.

There are many nuances to this film that bear mentioning, and at least two other most brilliant scenes.  For one thing, Joaquin Phoenix’s stance as Freddie, hands on hips, elbows thrust out to the sides like wings, an expectant kind of look, slightly on edge, combined with a hunched shoulder profile.  This makes Freddie’s character stand out as awkward, and confirms his outsider status, and his estrangement from the world of “the sane”.  There is Amy Dodd’s propensity for always being a bit higher than everyone in the room, and sitting in chairs that are very throne-like.  Her queenly nature, along with her nose in the air, confirms who it is that is really running the show (not to mention her domination of Lancaster in a bathroom scene).

One most brilliant scene I mentioned is the arrest sequence, in particular the contrast between Lancaster and Freddie in adjoining cells as Freddie, out of control, smashes his environment while the cool and collected Lancaster looks on.  And the second genius scene, I’m quite sure was difficult but also a hoot to shoot, was the interior “sing-along” where one moment we’re a gala crowd clapping and dancing to music, genteel and sophisticated, and the next we’re the vision of the same from the interior of Freddie’s mind, with all of the women unselfconsciously unclothed.  Brilliant.

There is not a wasted frame in this one.  An artistically done piece of historical fiction, well deserved accolades, and “master”ful cinematography.  Music is huge.  See it.

5 stars out of 5

Breaking Bad - again
5th Season - Last half begins:
Sunday, Aug. 11th AMC

Ok, I'm just going to say this once (more?) This is the best television drama series ever made.

And here is my favorite quote from Vince Gilligan, creator of the show:

In an interview with The New York Times, creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that "actions have consequences".^[9] He elaborated on the show's philosophy:

If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for Biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.'

Skyfall
2012

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem

A largely commercial venture that caters to the Superman crowd, I could not take this as seriously as a Mission Impossible, for instance.  There were too many panderings to Cinametique, and the whole thing was just way too long.  It stretched and stretched it seemed.  I could have edited this down and chewed off at least 40 minutes.  Plus it was all way too obvious as far as progression of plot.  The mystery just wasn't there.

Javier Bardem played his role magnificently, as would be expected.  He makes a great bad guy.  But the clownish blonde hair and the CG teeth...man.  I'm thinking as well that Javier felt a little out of his element here as he's been involved in some very serious roles in the past with No Country, Biutiful, and  To The Wonder (ok, we'll not count "Between Your Legs").  The security setup with him in the glass cage (with no potty to go in) was way ridiculous, as well as the moment with him on the ladder being shot at 5 times by Bond and evidently Bond claiming that he missed on purpose.  The explosion in the ceiling of the tunnel and the crashing of the train with its lights still on during the whole ordeal and no one on board the train in evidence was quite amateurish, no matter how much they spent on the scene.

The only delightful thing about the film, really, was the opening, and the credits were fantastic.  I think credits are becoming a category for the Oscars in themselves.  "For Best Credit Sequence in a Feature Film, the statue goes to...."  I actually like Adell's song for this movie, it was perfect for the pace of the credits as well.  Smooth baby.

Cannot say I'd ever watch again though.  Only a few fun moments, otherwise most of it lost in being filmy and Hollywoodish.  Lots of money, no results.  Oh, but at least a cool retro car in the end, and like a rock group and their guitars, they have to smash it of course.  Sorry, that's my spoiler.

1.5 stars of 5

Push

a novel by Sapphire
rel. date: June 1996

The reality of this world is too harsh for most, even in our minds mostly not comprehending the clarity with which this short but powerful work takes us to.  You imagine that it’s there, the dirty apartments, the dark halls, the cooking smells, the desperate people.  But mostly we don’t want to imagine, we don’t let enter our waking consciousness the incestuous, rapist father, the 400 pound abusive mother who would actually kick her own girl while she’s having a baby on the kitchen floor, then send the baby off to live with a grandmother because it’s retarded and she only wants the welfare money.  We can imagine the school where something/someone like this would go unnoticed, and not really be educating a child like this, but we cannot imagine what it is really like to be this person, to be this child.

Sapphire’s language choice, some critics would say, “pushes” the boundary between realism and sensationalism, a kind of Maury Povitch flavor to it.  You’d think that Precious and Mama would be guests on his show.  Precious is on stage first trying to tell Maury all about her life with this woman, and occasional man named Carl, in her broken BEV, which half the audience relates to in any case, and most understand because Maury is translating and helping along by asking pointed questions.  At key moments there are the TV monitors showing Mama’s reaction back stage, and occasional boos from the audience for the woman.  Then they bring her out to meet with Precious in front of everyone, and Mama tries to explain it away, the same way she tried to explain it to the social worker, who was horrified, and saw right through the disguise.   Near the end of the show it might be one of those scenes where both people are standing and flailing accusations at each other and security guards are keeping them apart, a spectacle for TV.

Well, that’s sensational, but it’s also very real.  This voice is real, although it is one that we do not like to hear.  These situations are real, and happen every day, in many ways that we may not imagine.  

You cannot come away from reading this without a heightened sense of awareness of the plight of the poor and the inner city life of the underprivileged.  The descriptions even of simply walking through neighborhoods, the broken tenements and dives of Harlem, are haunting.  This is a voice that while difficult for us to turn our face to, we need to continue to do so.

I’d like to “rate” this book, or compare it, but I cannot at this time.  What “scale” does one use to “rate” something like this?  What criterion?  What frame of reference?  All I think I can tell you is:

Not for youth or light reading.  Please be of a mature mind and solid heart if you undertake to read this book.

Home

a novel by
Marilynne Robinson
rel: 2008

Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishers

Home

An almost unutterably and grievously sad tale of longing, heartbreak, and their attendant truth.  This is the sequel to Gilead, Robinson's novel of a small town by that name, and 2 ministers who polarize yet orbit one another, much like the necessary bond of an Oxygen molecule, sharing an equal number of electrons.  But Home is another step, the polar perspective to Gilead.

Home winds us not through history or the townspeople, except for those necessary to the central tale, and not through a miasma of family ties either, like old scrapbooks that are simply interesting to the family members, and neither does it give way to narrative by way of events that keep us in suspense by their interweaving, as some fiction does.  It does have history, people, family, and a narrative that is definitely present, and leaning towards mystery, yet without any of those structures being the main support beam.  Instead, it takes us through the intricate, interwoven, and sometimes broken tapestry of the relationships that are born in a home, hence the title.  The other goal that this work so masterfully achieves is the unraveling of the mystery of faith in the individual, the nature of it, the impossibility of it in the face of our condition, and the inevitability of it only because of grace, and our ultimate submission to it.

Jack Boughton, the scion of the first book, the truly prodigal son of Reverend Boughton, comes Home, and this is the story from inside his house, a reversal of the perspective of Reverend Ames in the novel Gilead. For Jack to return, it has required a great deal of time away, and effort of will, battling the most supreme enemy of them all, destitution.  Purposes and motives are revealed, peeled back, one paragraph at a time, at times seeming to plod, and bringing us to a place of repetitiveness it would seem, but only for a moment, and then we realize that we're not reading the same thing again, with the same people, but it's delightfully different, deeper, sometimes darker, yes, but more intriguing than what we were expecting, more exacting, more closer to….home.

That's the scary thing really.  This painstakingly careful work of literary genius is surgical in its insistence that we face the human, ourselves, and although few of us might actually be in the exact relationships that these 3 people find themselves, that is only a stage and a backdrop to the play that we face when we put the book down for awhile and allow the haunting of the work to echo in our own reality.  I guarantee you that you will at some moment in the reading of this novel find a relational resemblance to something in your own life that bears bringing out from its possibly closeted inner sanctum for examination.  I also guarantee that because of the grace of the work that you will find a solace in it that will make it worth the effort.

Read this novel after Gilead.  If you have not read Gilead, or my review of Gilead, the Pulitzer Winner, please feel free to find it here: Gilead Review

Prometheus

2012

Ridley Scott

Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender

You'd think Alien would have run it's course as a three time film franchise.  It's been since 1979 since the first Alien popped out of a stomach and into a man's birthday cake, and today we still have acid blood that eats through helmets, and snake-like creatures that dominate men and seem to like esophegii.

But what we do not have in this film is cheesy effects and off-screen suspense as style.  We have instead the great visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott, author of Bladerunner and Gladiator, both stories having different epic proportions.  He was the perfect choice to bring this story line back to life, and as he's said in an interview, "re-open that book".

Story is oftentimes everything, but here in Prometheus, it is story and look and feel, just as cinema should be.  Film is show, and not tell.  The showing does the telling, and we are offered a great feast of first rate special effects, practical sets mixed with digital artistry, and wonderfully orchestrated mise-en-scene.  That would have been Roger Ebert's vernacular.  But what would Gene Siskel then say?
"Basically, for a scary movie, it's beautiful."

As for myth, Prometheus was a progenitor, Greek mythology, making man from clay, so it's appropriate to show the self-sacrifice of an "Engineer", allowing his own genes to be utterly destroyed in order to populate a virgin planet with the genetic makeup of a god.  Am I giving away too much?  He was a Titan, so you'd think this would draw some superhero fans, ok maybe not.  But this Titan evidently obtained Fire for mankind as a sort of blessing, yet for it, was given a curse by the gods.

In this story one is prone to associate Prometheus with the Engineers, but we need to remember that name was the name of the ship.  Considering the ending, it's quite possible that the name Prometheus sticks very closely with the mythical tale in proving that anything like an attempt at improving mankind ends up in tragedy somehow.

So the Engineers made us.  Well, ok, but then the pertinent question does get asked somewhere in the story,"So who made them?"  Yes, tricky.  Seems destined that we're off to a Prometheus II in some future day, given the end does lead us trailing off to somewhere else.  Everybody wants to get to the core, right?  And still the questions dangle, why the Aliens?  Why the escape tactics?  Questions begging to be answered in a sequel, we still don't really know.

My own personal theory is that the Alien species exists as an antithesis to the Creation.  Creation/Destruction, much like the balance of Yin and Yang.  It would seem they are a pet creation of the Engineers themselves, as their ship is brimming with enough ephermeral goo to....well anyway...we all know, however, that this balance in theology is not a theology, but rather a lack of one, and there is no real beginning, or at least the beginning is unknowable.  As  the astronaut/archeologist played by Noomi Rapace places the cross necklace back around her neck, the AI, David, by Michael Fassbender, asks her, "After all this, and you still believe?"

Yes, yes of couse she does. All the answers have not been given.  Only a robot would ask such a question.  Shh David, you just shush up until the sequel.

Many critics have cited the numerous "science" flaws and lack of professionalism by the crew, and the ability at the end for the inept captain and remaining crew to just give their lives completely to stop the alien ship.  There were quite a few inept and inappropriate moments afield, not to mention that you don't just get up from an operation that cuts open your gut and walk around.  But Scott knows that science is not all there is to the sci-fi.  It's mostly fiction, and you can get away with quite a bit with a compelling mystery and narrative.

4 stars of 5 for beauty and cinematography
4 stars of 5 for the editing, pacing, but not the music really (maybe a 2 on that)
5 of 5 for directing and 3.5 for acting - incredible "operation" scene by Noomi - just un-reeeeel.  But most of the acting was nominal.  Fassbender was terrific.